Sidney Lanier 
the poet of sunrise 



SIDNEY LANIER— THE POET OF SUNRISE 



SIDNEY LANIER 
THE POET OF SUNRISE 



BY 



JAMES S. SNODDY 

Instructor in English and Rhetoric University of Montana 




Atti etwVeutatt. 



REPRINTED FROM 

POET LORE, BOSTON 

DECEMBER, 1904 



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Author 
<P»rean) 

22 M'07 



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Dedicated to 
Lucius Adelno Sherman 




SIDNEY LANIER: THE POET OF SUNRISE 

IN order that a poet's portrayal of an object in nature may be seen and 
felt it is best for him not to give a complete description; as a 
descriptive poet cannot expect us to accept all the mass of details 
that his mood sets before us. We have our own ideals, and prefer 
to form our own estimates, and interpret for ourselves. The best 
effects, therefore, are attained by giving side-glimpses of the object 
— visualized glimpses, that appeal to the pictorial imagination. Of this 
visualization there are two processes : in one the picture is compltte in itself 
and sometimes reveals ideal beauty; in the other — which may be called the 
'kindling' process — we have not a complete picture, but merely a hint or 
sign, by which we may, through any of our sense perceptions, construct the 
whole picture. If space but permitted many passages could be quoted 
herein that would readily illustrate how Tennyson has by visualization 
excelled Wordsworth and Longfellow in portraying sunrise. By the ' kin- 
dling hint ' process in the opening of ' The Return of the Druses,' Browning 
has one line : — 



' The moon is carried off in purple fire,' 



SIDNEY LANIER: THE POET OF SUNRISE 

which sums up more than ordinary descriptive poets give us in entire stanzas. 
Those that have made a study of the poetry of England in regard to 
the treatment of sunset and sunrise maintain that there are a greater number 
of poets that have written on sunset. I have not attempted to make an 
extensive examination of this phase of the treatment of nature by American 
poets; but in turning through Griswold's 'Poets and Poetry of America' I 
find ten poems on evening, sunset, and twilight; while only five on morning, 
sunrise, and dawn. Glancing, too, through a small number of works by 
Southern writers which are at hand I find fifteen poems pertaining to sunset, 
and only five pertaining to sunrise. If by further investigation we could 
establish the same fact with regard to American poets that we maintain 
regarding the poets of England we should find that in this respect Sidney 
Lanier does not agree with the majority of our writers. He has written 
three poems on sunrise: 'Sunrise,' 'A Sunrise Song,' and 'Between Dawn 
and Sunrise'; while, on the other hand, but two pertaining to sunset: 
'Evening Song' and 'Marsh Song — at Sunset.' In addition to these 
poems he refers to sunrise, morning, or dawn, in twenty-four others; and to 
sunset, evening, or twilight, in only four. Moreover, some of his best 
poems, ' Corn ' and 'A Florida Sunday,' were evidently composed in the 
morning hours ; and in ' Clover ' he says : 

' 'Tis a perfect hour. 
From founts of dawn the fluent autumn day 
Has rippled as a brook right pleasantly 
Half-way to noon.' 

Lanier is pre-eminently the poet of sunrise. When he delineates the 
changes and varied colors of the morning sky we find in his word-painting 
a richness, glow, and splendor that is not surpassed by the most celebrated 
pen-pictures given us by Browning in his delineations of sunrise, or by 
Shelley in his exquisite pictures of sunset. Although in much of Lanier's 
poetry there is evidence of a sense of strain and effort not often found in the 
lines of great masters like Tennyson, it must be admitted that when Lanier 
comes out before daylight, under the open sky, and wanders along ' the 
dew-plashed road,' no strain nor effort is manifest in his portrayal of external 
nature ; he becomes a part of nature ; it is not external to him. What he says, 
he feels. Lowell, in 'Under the Willows,' says that his soul ' danced in the 



JAMES S. SNODDY 

leaves.' Lanier's soul would have danced with them in the morning hours, 
under similiar circumstances. 

No painter could give us a picture of sunrise so complete, that appeals 
to our feelings so effectively, as Lanier gives in the opening lines of ' Corn,' 
where the trembling woods ' melt in green,' and the 'dawn-stars melt in 
blue.' The kindling hints in these lines appeal not only to our senses of 
sight and smell, by soft tints and shades of color, and faint waf tings of 
odor, but also appeal to our sense of hearing, giving, in side-glimpses, the 
most delicate sounds, — sounds that ears not attuned to the ' music of nature ' 
seldom hear save through the intervention and interpretation of musicians. 
If we had nothing but this poem its picture of sunrise would be sufficient to 
convince us that its author was a musician. 

Many of Lanier's references to sunrise are also kindling hints that 
appeal to the ear: in 'Clover' we seem to hear 'nimble noises that with 
sunrise ran'; in 'The Waving of the Corn,' 'sounds that mix each morn 
with the waving of the corn ' ; in ' June Dreams in January,' a ' visible Sigh 
out of the mournful East' (impressionistic) ; and in 'The Mocking Bird,' 
it was morning when the bird ' summ'd the woods in song.' 

But the most excellent hint that appeals to the ear is the one in ' Sun- 
rise,' where the ' too-tenuous tissues of space and of night ' are ' oversated 
with beauty and silence.' He does not tell us when or how this silence is 
broken, but leaves the interpretation to us; we feel a noise is made, but not a 
noise that can be described, not even one of his ' little noises ' or ' nimble 
noises'; it is a noise that our imaginations realize — that we hear with our 
inner ear. In contemplating this picture of dawn we see beyond the picture, 
and, by emotional inference, see the portrayer himself; we realize how one 
could feel with an ear like his — an ear capable of catching such delicate 
sounds, and thus have, at first hand, experiences of ' Revelatory Truth.' 

In the ' Sunrise ' there are other kindling hints which, by means of 
motion, appeal to us through our sense-perceptions. At the same time that 
the indescribable sound is made, there is also a motion : 

' But no : it is made : list ! somewhere, mystery, where ? 

In the leaves? in the air? 
In my heart? Is a motion made: 
'Tis a motion of dawn, like a flicker of shade on shade.' 



SIDNEY LANIER: THE POET OF SUNRISE 

There are other references to sunrise where the hints are made by means 
of motion : in ' Symphony ' the mountain fawns ' tremble if the day but 
dawn'; in 'Jacquerie' a figure is used where blood is represented leaping 
'As a hart upon the river-banks at morn ' ; and in the passages quoted above 
from ' Clover' and 'The Waving of the Corn,' motion, in connection with 
sound, helps to complete the picture. 

The best pictures that are set forth through kindling hints by means 
of color are found in ' My Springs ' ; here heaven and earth are ' shot 
through with lights of stars and dawns ' ; and in 'A Florida Sunday,' in con- 
nection with sound and motion, we are made to see the pea-green paroquets, 
to hear their calls, and to see their 'quick flights from green to green'; in 
' Corn,' to which reference has already been made, the woods ' melt in green 
as dawn-stars melt in blue.' 

Bryant, the most popular nature-poet of America, is, in his treatment 
of sunset and sunrise, the antithesis of Lanier. In reading a few of his 
poems that pertain to sunset, — as 'A Walk at Sunset,' ' The Evening Wind,' 
'An Evening Reverie,' and 'May Evening,' — we are convinced that the 
morning hour was not a favorite theme with him. 

' Give me one hour to hymn the setting sun ' 

is his appeal to his poetic muse. In his estimation the sun's ' setting smiles ' 
were ' loveliest.' Nature had most charms for him at the hour when 

' the weary bee .... 

Rests in his waxen room,' 
and 

' Every hovering insect to his place 
Beneath the leaves hath flown.' 

Whitman, another American poet who loved nature, seldom referred 
to sunrise in his poetry. Like Bryant, he loved better the evening hours. 
In ' Twilight ' he speaks of 

' The soft voluptuous opiate shades ' 

that appeared when the sun had ' just gone,' and when the ' eager light ' 
had been ' dispelled ' ; and in 'A Prairie Sunset ' he tells us of the 

10 



JAMES S. SNODDY 

1 Pure luminous color fighting the silent shadows to the last.' 

But Whitman's sunset sky, beautiful and sublime as it is, is surpassed 
by the calm solemnity of his night sky ; in his ' Song of Myself ' he says : 

' I am he that walks with the tender and growing night, 
I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night. 
Press close bare-bosom'd night — press close magnetic nourishing night! ' 

Among American poets Bryant is the poet of the evening sky; Whit- 
man of the night sky. But Lanier is the poet of the morning sky. Further, 
he is pre-eminently the poet of the day sky. He manifests more interest 
in the sky as seen by day than in that seen by night. In this respect he is 
not only the antithesis of Whitman, but of Keats. Keats has been called 
the ' moon poet ' of England ; Lanier could well be called the ' sun poet ' of 
America. 

Although Lanier stands pre-eminently above all American writers as 
poet of the day sky and of sunrise there are several among our verse-writers 
of lesser fame that deserve commendation. Paul Hamilton Hayne in 
'Cloud Fancies,' 'The May Sky,' and 'Cloud Pictures'; and Amelia B. 
Welby in her exquisite little poem, ' The Rainbow,' have portrayed the day 
sky in no mean way. Richard Watson Gilder in ' New Day ' gives a pleas- 
ing picture of the morning sky : 

' Slowly, within the East, there grew a light 
Which half was star-light, and half seemed to be 
The herald of a greater. The pale white 
Turned slowly to pale rose, and up the height 
Of heaven slowly climbed. The gray sea grew 
Rose-colored like the sky.' 

But contrast this with Lanier's picture in ' Sunrise ' : 

'And lo, in the East ! Will the East unveil? 
The East is unveiled, the East hath confessed 
A flush: 'tis dead; 'tis alive; 'tis dead, ere the West 
Was aware of it: nay, 'tis abiding, 'tis unwithdrawn: 
Have a care, sweet Heaven! 'Tis Dawn.' 

11 



SIDNEY LANIER: THE POET OF SUNRISE 

In the former we have a description ; the writer tells us that the colors 
are 'pale white,' 'pale rose,' 'gray,' and 'rose-colored.' In reading this 
poem we feel that Gilder is forcing his interpretations upon us. Lanier 
does not do this; he appeals indirectly to us; gives us hints, and leaves the 
interpretation to us. We are made to feel that the ' East is unveiled ' — that 
it is dawn; we need not be told of the colors of his morning sky; they are 
there. Again, Gilder tells us three times, in these few lines, that the changes 
in color took place ' slowly.' Lanier does not interpret the change for us 
— does not tell us how the change took place; in a subtle way he makes us 
feel that there was a change in the color of the eastern sky, which happened 
' ere the West was aware of it.' In his treatment of sunrise Gilder is inter- 
pretative; Lanier, revelatory. Lanier's touch is the touch of an artist. 

Although he was not in every respect as great a poet as others that have 
been quoted in this paper, or even as great a nature-poet as some, it must 
be admitted that in his treatment of sunrise he has uniqueness, — a subtle 
quality not surpassed by other poets. Browning, for example, in his visual- 
ized presentations of sunrise, although beautiful and impressive, used them 
primarily as backgrounds upon which he delineated human character. After 
reading the opening stanza of ' The Return of the Druses ' we forget the 
gorgeous cr 'oring of the Oriental scene, and turn our attention unconsciously 
to the stud- f the characteristics of the Syrian people. In the first stanza 
of ' Pippa Passes ' our sympathies are turned to the poor ' little silk-winding 
girl,' in whose welfare we become so interested that we lose sight of the beau- 
tiful Italian sunrise as the day 

' Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim.' 

In their treatment of sunrise Tennyson and other great poets, like 
Browning, have used it as a means to accomplish other purposes. Lanier 
portrayed sunrise for its own sake; in this respect he excelled them all. 



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